


Generation 5000

by ofstormsandwolves



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Dimension-Hopping Rose, Episode AU: s04e06 The Doctor's Daughter, F/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-25 01:10:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10753605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofstormsandwolves/pseuds/ofstormsandwolves
Summary: A changed Rose lands on a strange planet while trying to find her way back to the Doctor, and finds herself being 'processed' by a group of soldiers who want help winning a war. Is it just a distraction, or will it help lead her back to the Doctor?





	1. Chapter 1

Rose Tyler hit the ground with a flash of light and a thud. Both her gun and the dimension hopper skittered across the floor, the hopper coming to rest a few feet from where Rose had fallen, but the gun only coming to a stop once it hit the looming brick wall some distance away. Groaning to herself, she had just hauled herself up onto all fours when she heard the sound of heavy boots approaching.

Wincing slightly at the unexpectedly heavy fall, and a little winded, she sat back on her heels and took a look at her surroundings as the sound of boots drew nearer. She appeared to have landed in some sort of underground bunker almost, all dark and mottled brick and a distinct whiff in the air that suggested the place didn’t get much air. While it seemed pretty dark and a little bit grim, it was preferable to some of the other places she’d landed whilst dimension hopping.

The heavy boots rounded the corner then, and Rose saw five men staring at her. They all looked rather young, maybe in their late teens or early twenties, and looked human enough, but they all had guns pointing at her and Rose surveyed them carefully. One of the men eyed the gun some distance away, before levelling his own gun at Rose again. Slowly, she raised her hands above her head, still sitting on the floor.

“I’m not armed,” she told them, vaguely wondering if she’d even be understood- she’d learned the hard way during some of her hops that there was no longer a TARDIS to translate her words, and even if these people looked human, it didn’t mean they spoke 21st century English. Language evolved a lot over the centuries.

She spared a glance at the fallen hopper, and the Torchwood-issue gun she knew she had no hope of reaching. The hopper was too far away for her to feasibly get to, as well, and even if she did get to it without getting shot, it took thirty minutes to recharge. Somehow, she didn’t think she had thirty minutes.

“Look,” she began again, forcing herself to tear her gaze away from the hopper and back to the men- soldiers?- who were still aiming at her, “I’m not gonna hurt you. My gun’s all the way over there, I’m not a threat.”

Slowly, one of the men crept closer to her, and Rose remained as still as possible. She tried to maintain eye contact, to show that she wasn’t hiding anything, or planning anything. But the man’s eyes were not on her face, but her hands.

“She’s clean,” he called back to the others, although he didn’t look round as he did so. 

Rose watched them carefully, a little confused, but as she took in their slightly grubby appearances and the fact their clothes were all the same, she began to wonder if there’d been some sort of incident. Maybe these men weren’t here to harm her, but had been forced down here by some creature, or some threat? But before she could voice any of these ideas, the man was speaking again.

“We need to take her to the machines. She needs to be processed.”

“I- Wha-?” Rose asked, but it was all she managed to get out as two of the other men rushed over, hauling her none-too-gently to her feet and began marching her back the way she came.

She tried to protest, to fight back, to break their grip but she couldn’t. Rose craned her neck round to spare one final glance at the dimension hopper, which lay scratched and forgotten on the dirty floor.

~0~0~

Rose was led along the corridor to a larger version of the room she’d landed in. The bricks arched up overhead, and briefly she wondered if they were in this world’s version of a tube station, or something similar. But she could see no tracks, and there was still no fresh air coming from any direction. They seemed completely sealed off.

She was pulled from her thoughts then as she was forced over to a cluster of machinery before, with no warning whatsoever, one of the men holding her shoved her hand deep into a large cylindrical metal machine.

“Hey, what’re you-” Rose broke off with a pained noise, before gritting her teeth and swearing under her breath. 

All around her hand, the machine was heating up, whirring and glowing and smoking, and whatever it was doing to Rose’s hand damn well hurt. She gritted her teeth even more, tried to ignore the stinging tears that were welling behind her eyes. It felt like her hand was burning, like someone had stuck a hundred needles into it, like... Well, Rose wasn’t too sure, but it hurt like hell. The man who had forced her hand into the machine in the first place was watching her carefully, and a brief thought that she’d very much like to slap him came across Rose’s mind.

“Bloody hell,” she managed quietly through grit teeth. There was a searing pain in her chest then, but Rose tamped it down. That pain, while still hurting, had become a familiar pain to her, and she pushed it aside. She had learned to deal with it, ever since it had started not long after first being separated from the Doctor. She’d learned to power through it, push it aside, ignore it.  
She could still feel the prickling behind her eyes, though, and she cried out again. The man beside her suddenly stepped back then, wide-eyed, and the prickling behind her eyes, and the pain in her chest crested. The machine seemed to spit Rose out then, and she stumbled back, gasping for breath. Her head was swimming.

“Did you see her eyes?!” the man gaped, looking to his friends for support.

Rose’s head whipped round at that, worried about what they might do to her next. They weren’t going to scan her, were they? They wouldn’t scan her. What would happen if they did? What would they do to her? A worried frown formed on her face at that thought as the pain behind her eyes and in her chest receded somewhat. Her hand, however, throbbed. Looking down at it, Rose found that there was a dark red mark across the back of her hand, almost like some sort of burn that hadn’t yet had chance to heal.

Another whirring reached her ears, then, and Rose looked up just in time to see a large white machine whirr into life, doors sliding open and smoke pouring out as a figure stepped forward, backlit by the blue lights.

“Ok,” Rose mumbled, “bit ‘Stars in Their Eyes’.”

As the smoke cleared somewhat and the figure stepped forward, Rose saw that it was a tall, somewhat lanky young man of maybe about 19. He was dressed in a bottle green round-necked t-shirt and a black pair of black utility trousers, paired with a pair of boots. His hair was blonde and somewhat messy, and his eyes were wide and a hazel colour that Rose thought looked familiar, but she couldn’t place where she knew them from.

The young man looked somewhat dazed as he took in his surroundings. One of the men who had escorted Rose there in the first place stepped forward, holding a gun out for the man to take. He blinked at it, before frowning and shaking his head.

“No thanks.”

The men all shared a look.

“Cline?” the man who had offered the newcomer a gun asked, glancing at the man who had made the call to ‘process’ Rose.

“Come on,” the man- Cline- said. He seemed to be in charge in this group of men. “You’re a generation 5000 soldier! You should be primed to fight! Take the gun!”

But the newcomer simply frowned again, turning to look at Cline, whose brown hair was falling over his eyes slightly. Rose noted that Cline looked a little out of his depth, but seemed determined to cling on to his control. Maybe he wasn’t the overall leader here, she mused, but was in charge of this group of men. He wanted to prove himself. Cline squared his shoulders and levelled his gaze at the man from the machine.

“You will take the gun, soldier. That’s an order.”

But the man once more shook his head. “I don’t want it.”

One of the men near Rose huffed. “Great. Bloody pacifist stock. That’s all we need.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose piped up a little warily, “but what’s going on? Pacifist stock?”

The man who had spoken gave Rose a disgusted look. “You. Why didn’t you tell us you were pacifist stock? We wouldn’t have bothered using you if we’d known!”

Rose blinked. “Used me?” 

Her gaze swung back round to the machine they’d put her arm in, before she glanced back down at her hand. The mark was still there, red and angry. Slowly, her gaze moved from her hand to the machine the young man had stepped out of, before finally settling on the man himself. His hazel eyes locked on hers and it suddenly clicked in Rose’s head. Those eyes looked familiar, because they were her eyes.

~0~0~

“So where exactly do you get off takin’ people’s DNA without their permission?” 

Rose’s tone was somewhat humorous, but her words were anything but. She and the young man- her son, a little voice in the back of her head supplied- were now being frog-marched further into this strange underground city to speak to someone higher up. When it became clear that the young man from the machine wouldn’t cooperate, and Rose realised just what had happened with that machine and her being ‘processed’, Cline had been keen to pass them on to someone higher up.

They were led down another corridor then, Rose’s question hanging unanswered in the musty air.

“Any idea where they’re takin’ us?” the young man asked, glancing across at Rose.

She shrugged up at him, and forced a smile. “Wherever it is, we’ll find a way out.”

Finally, they were led into an old theatre, were people were hurrying around moving boxes, giving orders, hurrying here, there and everywhere. Rose blinked as she looked around. There were a lot more people than she’d expected, and considering the technology they had, they didn’t appear to be living in the best of conditions.

“New recruits?” an older man with a white man asked as he made his way through the chaos towards them.

“We picked the woman up in one of the unused tunnels,” Cline explained. “She hadn’t been processed, so we went ahead and processed her ourselves, General Cobb.” Cline spared a brief, worried glance at Rose then, before leaning in close to Cobb. “She’s strange, sir. She’s... Corrupted the soldier. We won’t be able to breed from her again.”

Rose spluttered at that, and beside her, the young man raised an eyebrow.

“I see,” Cobb murmured back, taking a moment to glance over at Rose and the young man. “Corrupted how?”

Cline shifted a little nervously on his feet then. “Her... Her eyes. When she was being processed, they... They glowed.”

Cobb blinked, and turned his gaze back to Rose then, who remained passive. She’d known it was happening at the time, of course, had recognised the familiar prickling behind her eyes, which had been going on for nearly two years, since not long after being separated from the Doctor. But she wasn’t going to tell them that.

“Right,” Cobb said after a moment. “And has it affected the soldier?”

Beside her, Rose felt the young man- her son, the voice said again, and blimey it sounded a lot like her mum- bristle, and she put a soothing hand on his arm. She still might not fully understand how this man, this product of a machine, was her son, but she still felt protective of him. Like a mother wolf protecting her cub. In the back of her mind, a golden wolf reared its head and howled.

“It’s hard to say,” Cline admitted. “But he refused to accept the weapon we gave him. She’s clearly from pacifist stock. She’s contaminated.”

And suddenly, the young man was no longer beside Rose, but was instead toe-to-toe with a frightened looking Cline.

“My _mother_ is not _contaminated_ ,” he spat, glaring the other man down.

A few feet away, Rose’s eyes fluttered shut briefly as her brain processed the fact that he- her son- sounded just like her father then.

“She’s contaminated you,” Cobb said calmly, causing the young man’s gaze to turn from Cline to him. “I’m sure we can fix it, however. We could do with someone with your passion.”

Cobb was wearing what Rose could only describe as a smug grin then.

But the young man merely straightened. “No thanks.”

Cobb continued, however, undeterred. “But we could offer you so much more than she can. There’s nothing we can do for her, but you, my son, you could become a hero. Help us in this war!”

He reached out a hand to place it on the younger man’s shoulder, but instead the man wrenched himself back.

“I said no.”

And Cobb’s smug grin faded abruptly. Rose frowned slightly, hesitantly crossing the expanse of floor. Cobb and Clive were both just staring at the young man, Cline looking fearful, while Cobb looked torn between shock and dismay. Cautiously, Rose reached out a hand and turned her son towards her. It took some insisting on her part, but as he turned, she saw his eyes were filled with golden light.

“She’s corrupted him,” she vaguely registered Cobb saying. “He’s contaminated too. Get them out of here.”

~0~0~

As the TARDIS lurched to the side once again, the occupants of the control room clung onto the console.

“What the hell’s it doing?!” Donna demanded, glaring across the spinning room at the Doctor.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was desperately fiddling with controls while holding on as best he could. “The control’s not working!”

He tumbled to the floor then as the TARDIS jolted once more, and he came face to face with the jar beneath the console that contained his old hand. It bubbled away, and a small smile graced his face.

“I don’t know where we’re going,” he admitted, getting to his feet, “but my old hand’s very excited about it.”

Donna looked somewhat disgusted at that. “I thought that was just some freaky alien thing. You telling me it’s yours?”

The Doctor sniffed. “Well.”

“It got cut off,” Martha interrupted with a grin. “He grew a new one.”

Donna blinked at Martha, before turning back to the Doctor. “You are completely impossible.

“Not impossible,” the Doctor countered. “Just a bit unlikely.”

The room went up in a shower of sparks then, before there was a thud that signalled that they’d at least landed somewhere, and suddenly they were still. The Doctor almost immediately set off for the doors.

When he stepped outside, followed closely by Martha and Donna, he had to admit he was a little disappointed with the cold, dull brick and the musty air that awaited them.

“Why would the TARDIS bring us here, then?” he mused as he took in their surroundings.

But beside him, Martha was grinning. “Oh, I love this bit.”

Donna smirked knowingly at her. “I thought you wanted to go home,” she reminded her.

Martha just grinned back. “I know,” she admitted, “but all the same, it’s that feeling you get.”

“Like you swallowed a hamster?”

Before either Martha or the Doctor could respond to Donna’s hamster comment, there was the sound of heavy boots approaching, and three men with guns were suddenly in front of them, guns aimed at the three time travellers.

“Don’t move! Stay where you are! Drop your weapons!”

All three of them instinctively raised their hands.

“We’re unarmed,” the Doctor told them. “Look, no weapons. Never any weapons. We’re safe.”

“Cline,” one of the men said, addressing the first man who’d spoken, “look at their hands. They’re clean too.”

Cline’s gaze came to rest on their hands, and he let out a small sound of annoyance.

“Same as before then,” he said. “Process them.”

One of the men frowned. “But the machines haven’t been used since... You know. This morning’s incident.”

“Yeah, and we’re already behind. We need more recruits. Like I said, process them. But keep a proper eye on them this time.” Cline looked from Donna, to Martha, to the Doctor. “Him first.”

The Doctor was hauled off towards a large cylindrical metal machine, even as he protested loudly.

“Oi, oi! What’s wrong with clean hands?”

Donna and Martha made to follow, but there was still a gun aimed at them.

“What’s going on?” Martha asked, even though she wasn’t expecting an answer.

The Doctor reached the machine then, his arm shoved deep inside. “Something tells me this isn’t about to check my blood pressure,” he murmured, before breaking off with a pain noise as the machine began to whir and smoke.

“What are you doing to him?” Donna demanded then, rounding on Cline.  
Cline held a steady gaze, not looking at all fazed by Donna’s anger. “Everyone gets processed.”

“It’s taken a tissue sample,” the Doctor managed to gasp out. “Ow, ow, ow, ow! And extrapolated it. Some kind of accelerator?”

Then suddenly, the machine finished its whirring and the Doctor stumbled backwards. Martha rushed forward, in full doctor mode, to check him over.

“Are you alright?” she asked, even as she took a look at the back of his hand. There was a strange, red, angry burn on the back of his hand, but it wasn’t like anything Martha had seen before.

“What on Earth?” the Doctor frowned. “That’s just-”

A large white machine across the room was whirring then, the doors sliding open and blue light spilling out along with smoke. A figure appeared, and stepped out into the room, blinking slightly at the change of light. She was slim and blonde, wearing a round-neck bottle-green t-shirt and dark trousers with combat boots, and was quickly presented with a gun by Cline.

“Arm yourself,” he told her as she took the weapon.

Martha and Donna both blinked and looked at the Doctor in confusion, who was still staring at the younger woman across the room.

“Where did she come from?” Martha asked in confusion.

Eyes still on the woman across the room, the Doctor managed to respond. “From me.”

Donna blinked at him. “From you? How? Who is she?”

The woman by now was checking the rifle over, getting it ready to be fired, and she clearly knew what she was doing.

“Well, she’s...” the Doctor began slowly. “Well, she’s my daughter.”

Almost as if she had heard them talking, the woman looked up and across the room at them then, giving them a bright smile as she did so. “Hello, Dad.”


	2. Chapter 2

“You primed to take orders?” Cline asked, and he sounded a little cautious. “Ready to fight?”

The young woman smiled brightly. “Instant mental download of all strategic and military protocols, sir. Generation 5000 soldier primed and in peak physical health. Oh, I’m ready.”

She moved to take her place with Cline and the other soldiers then, and two of the soldiers shared a look with Cline.

“So what happened earlier wasn’t a machine malfunction then?” one of them noted to Cline. Cline pointedly ignored them.

Across the room, Donna and Martha were still trying to wrap their heads around what had happened.

“Did you say daughter?” Donna asked, still feeling like she was several minutes behind everyone else.

The Doctor hummed in agreement. “Technically.”

Martha looked up at him. “Technically how?” she questioned.

“Progenation,” the Doctor responded, watching the young woman- his daughter- across the room. “Reproduction from a single organism. Means one parent is biological mother and father. You take a sample of diploid cells, split them into haploids, then recombine them in a different arrangement and grow. Very quickly, apparently.”

Across the room, his daughter had startled, as had many of the other soldiers. 

“Something’s coming,” she told them, and shadows began appearing on the tunnel wall, along with the sound of heavy boots.

Almost as soon as the figures came into view, guns were being fired.

“It’s the Hath!” Cline called out, and the soldiers began retaliating with their own fire.

“Get down!” the young woman called out, and no sooner had the words left her mouth that the Doctor, Martha and Donna were ducking for cover. 

There was more gunfire, the Hath- some sort of strange mutated fish species with breathing apparatus- were drawing closer, and Cline shouted out another command.

“We have to blow the tunnel! Get the detonator!”

At that, the Doctor’s face went cold. He was nearest the detonator, it seemed, but he didn’t move. “I’m not detonating anything.”

Instead, he crossed the floor to attend to a wounded soldier, not long before the Hath breached the makeshift barrier Cline and the others had been defending. Martha was grabbed from behind by a Hath, dragged quite literally kicking and screaming from Donna, and somewhere in all the confusing and heavy boots, it was the Doctor’s daughter who ended up with the detonator in hand.

“Blow the thing!” Cline shouted, and he sounded frantic. “Blow the thing!”

The Doctor, who had by now processed what was happening in all the chaos instead started towards the Hath, and Martha. “Martha!” He spun around to where the young woman was clutching the detonator. “No. Don’t-”

The button was hit, a klaxon sounded, and there was a kerfuffle of running soldiers before the impending explosion. One big boom and the roof was falling down around them. As the Doctor and Donna scrambled to their feet, they saw that where Martha and the Hath had once been, there was instead a huge pile of rubble.

“You’ve sealed off the tunnel,” the Doctor stated, before rounding on the woman from the machine. “Why did you do that?”

“They were trying to kill us!” she protested.

The Doctor came right back with a counter-argument. “But they’ve got my friend!”

“Collateral damage,” the woman said calmly. “At least you’ve still got her.” She nodded towards Donna. “He lost both his men. I’d say you came out ahead.”

At that, Donna, who had still been trying to make sense of everything in her head, rounded on the younger woman. “Her name’s Martha. And she’s not collateral damage, not for anyone! Have you got that, G.I. Jane?”

“I’m going to find her,” the Doctor said suddenly, in a tone that suggested that he wasn’t going to argue with anyone about it.

But apparently, Cline didn’t get the message. “You’re going nowhere. You don’t make sense, you two. No guns, no marks, no fight in you. You’re the second lot we’ve had through here like that today.” A shadow passed over his face at that. “I’m taking you to General Cobb. Now, move.”

~0~0~

Halfway into being led to see this ‘General Cobb’, Donna attempted to strike up a conversation with the woman from the machine.

“I’m Donna,” she told her as she fell into step with the younger woman. “What’s your name?”

The blonde shrugged. “Don’t know,” she said. “It’s not been assigned.”

Donna blinked. “Well, if you don’t know that, what do you know?”

“How to fight,” the woman replied, as if it should be obvious.

“Nothing else?” Donna asked, not believing that violence was the only thing this woman knew.

“The machine must embed military history and tactics but no name,” the Doctor piped up from behind him. He was still glaring, and he sounded none too happy as he spoke. “She’s a generated anomaly.”

“Generated anomaly,” Donna echoed. “Generated. Well, what about that? Jenny.”

At that, the younger woman blinked, before smiling slightly. “Jenny. Yeah, I like that. Jenny.”

By the time they arrived at what the assumed was the soldiers’ main base a little while later, they had quickly established that the Doctor was still none too keen to accept the possibility that Jenny could actually be his daughter. His mood did, however, improve as he took a look around the large room.

“So, where are we? What planet’s this?”

“Messaline,” Cline told him. “Well, what’s left of it.”

Over the tannoy came a message then, and the Doctor and Donna shared a look. “Six six three seventy five deceased. Generation six six seven one, extinct. Generation six six seven two, forty six deceased. Generation seix six eight zero fourteen deceased.”

It continued on like that as Donna took in their surroundings. “But this is a theatre,” she noted, taking in the gallery and the decor.

“Maybe they’re doing Miss Saigon,” the Doctor responded.

Donna didn’t laugh. “It’s like a town or a city underground. But why?”

A man with white hair and a white beard approached then, and the Doctor surveyed him carefully.

“General Cobb, I presume,” he said when the man reached them.

“Found in the western tunnels, I’m told, with no marks,” Cobb said, looking the Doctor and Donna over. “There was an outbreak of pacifism in the eastern zone three generations back, before we lost contact. Is that where you came from? Along with the woman we dealt with earlier?”

Donna frowned at the mention of another person being ‘dealt with’, but the Doctor nodded quickly.

“Eastern zone, that’s us, yeah. Yeah. I’m the Doctor, this is Donna.”

“And I’m Jenny,” Jenny piped up happily.

Cobb eyed her a little warily. “Don’t think you can infect us with your peacemaking. We’re committed to the fight, to the very end. Even that little stunt from your woman earlier won’t deter us.”

“Well, that’s alright,” the Doctor said, although he had no idea just what Cobb meant by something happening earlier. Hoping it didn’t prove obvious, and that it wouldn’t give them away, he pretended to know what the other man was talking about. “Earlier was a... Mistake. I can’t stay, anyway. I’ve got to go and find my friend.”

“That’s not possible,” Cobb responded. “All movement is regulated. We’re at war.”

The Doctor nodded slowly, hands deep in his pockets. “Yes, I noticed. With the Hath. But tell me, because we got a bit out of circulation, eastern zone and all that. So who exactly are the Hath?”

~0~0~

Less than ten minutes later, the Doctor had accidentally led Cobb to discover the secret layer of the map that would allow them to attack the Hath.

“Tell them to prepare to move out,” Cobb ordered. “We’ll progenate new soldiers on the morning shift, then we march. Once we reach the Temple, peace will be restored at long last.”

The Doctor interrupted then. “Er, call me old-fashioned, but if you really wanted peace, couldn’t you just stop fighting?”

Cobb gave him a disgusted look at that. “Only when we have the Source. It’ll give us the power to erase every stinking Hath from the face of this planet.”

He turned away then, but the Doctor was talking again. “Hang on, hand on. A second ago it was peace in our time. Now you’re talking about genocide.”  
Cobb turned back, fixing the Doctor with a steely gaze. “For us, that means the same thing.”

“Then you need to get yourself a better dictionary. When you do, look up genocide. You’ll see a little picture of me there, and the caption will read ‘over my dead body’.”

Cobb scoffed at that. “And you’re the one who showed us the path to victory. But you can consider the irony from your prison cell. Cline, at arms.”

Cline levelled his gun at them and Donna immediately protested.

“Oi, oi, oi! Alright. Cool the beans, Rambo.”

“Take them,” Cobb instructed darkly. “I won’t have them spreading treason. And if you try anything, Doctor, I’ll see that your woman dies first.”

The Doctor blinked at that. “No, we’re, we’re not a couple,” he insisted.

“I am not his woman,” Donna added quickly.

But Cobb clearly didn’t care. “Keep them away from that woman,” he instructed Cline. “Don’t want them plotting anything.”

Cline gave a swift nod, before gesturing with his gun to Donna and the Doctor. “Come on. This way.”

“I’m going to stop you, Cobb,” the Doctor told the older man, levelling his gaze at him and not moving. “You need to know that.”

But Cobb just smirked. “I have an army and the Breath of God on my side, Doctor. What’ll you have?”

The Doctor’s response was one single word. “This.” He tapped at the side of his head.

Cobb didn’t look impressed, and instead just turned to Cline again. “Lock them up and guard them.”

“What about the new soldier?” Cline asked, gaze flicking briefly to Jenny.

Cobb eyed the young woman carefully for a moment before making his decision. “Can’t trust her. She’s from pacifist stock. Take them all.”

~0~0~

Cline led them to the cells without saying a word. They were herded into a cell and the door was locked securely behind them before Cline went off to take a seat at the end of the corridor to survey everyone who came and went. The Doctor was taking in the appearance of the cell- or maybe checking for a way out, Donna wasn’t sure- but it was Jenny who noticed that the cell opposite theirs was also occupied.

“Are you pacifists too?” she asked the tall blonde man in the opposite cell.

The man smiled with a tongue-touched smile, his hazel eyes sparkling even in the low light. “Somethin’ like that,” he agreed, slightly amused. 

“I’m Jenny,” Jenny said with a smile. “What’s your name?”

At that, the man faltered. “I wasn’t assigned-” he broke off, looked behind him further into the cell, and there was a murmuring.

“Is that the woman Cobb was talking about?” Jenny asked, a little eagerly. “The woman who tried to trick him?”

The man frowned at that, looking confused.

“See,” the Doctor began, already talking as he turned to face the opposite cell, “Cobb told us there’d been an incident earlier, a woman who-”

He trailed off as he stared at the prisoners in the opposite cell.

“Doctor?” Donna prompted, a little worried that he’d suddenly gone silent.

Even Jenny and the other man were blinking at him in confusion. The man’s cellmate had come to stand beside him while the Doctor spoke, and watched him carefully.

“Hello, Doctor.” Rose gave him a small, slightly nervous smile.

The Doctor blinked. “Rose,” he murmured after a moment. “But how-?”

“That’s Rose?” Donna asked quickly, her confusion giving way to excitement.

Jenny frowned. “Who’s Rose?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” the Doctor was saying again, and Rose arched an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, charming,” she told him, though she was smiling so he knew she wasn’t being serious. “I crossed universes for you, and that’s what you say when I get back!”

There was the sound of footsteps, and Cline appeared, looking a little nervous as he looked at Rose, before turning his attention to the Doctor. “You’re not supposed to talk to her.”

“Well there’s not much else to do to pass the time!” Donna groused.

Cline ignored her, but gave another wary glance at Rose. He looked back at the Doctor again. Then, he sighed, and walked away.

“I’m glad you’re here,” the Doctor said once Cline had retreated, wide-eyed and more than a little giddy, “but it shouldn’t be possible.”

At that, Rose simply smiled sadly. “I’ve changed, Doctor.”

He took in her appearance. Her hair was a little longer than it used to be, she’d finally lost those last few remnants of baby fat, and she looked more grown up on the whole. But she was still his Rose.

“Doctor,” she said again, and he forced his gaze back to her face. “The Bad Wolf. It changed me.”

A shadow passed over the Doctor’s face.

“Bad Wolf?” Donna asked with a frown. “What’s that?”

She didn’t get an answer.

“Changed you how?” the Doctor asked, his voice tight. “It shouldn’t... I took it out of you. The Vortex.”

“Yeah, you did,” Rose agreed softly. “But the power of the Vortex didn’t make me the Bad Wolf, and you know it. It just... Unlocked it. An’ I think I changed the timelines, or myself, or both, while I still had the Vortex in me. ‘Cause there’s no other explanation for what’s happened to me, other than that...”

“Rose,” the Doctor urged, eyes wide and face pressed against the bars of his cell, almost like he was hoping they’d simply melt away and he could just step through. “What’s happened?”

She gave him a small, slightly sad smile at that. “I have two hearts.”

Time, if possible, stood still.

~0~0~

“So you’re a... What do you call female Time Lords?” Donna asked, gaze moving from Rose to the Doctor and back again.

“Time Ladies,” the Doctor answered for her. “And I don’t know if Rose is one, until I can get her back to the TARDIS to check. But it sounds like it.” His eyes shut then, and Rose watched him sadly from the other side of the corridor. “So that’s why you came back.”

“Well, not just that,” Rose told him quietly. “I, well, I missed you.”  
A ghost of a smile was on the Doctor’s lips then, but it didn’t last long. “Your parents?”

Rose smiled slightly at that. “Mum put up a bit of a fuss,” she admitted softly, “but not as much as I thought she would. She understood. She got a second chance, with Dad, and while she wasn’t happy about me being a whole other universe away, she understood. I think Dad found it hard, though. We’d only just started properly seeing each other as family when my chest pains started, and when Torchwood discovered my body was growing a second heart, he almost hit the roof. He wasn’t angry, just... Scared, I guess. But they’ve got my little brother now anyway. Tony. And like I said, they sort of understand why I’d take the chance.”

“But you won’t see them again. Your own family,” the Doctor reminded her, and he knew he was unwittingly echoing his words in the lever room all those years ago.

Rose seemed to know too, because she gave him a small smile. “I made my choice a long time ago. Besides, you’re my family. You and the TARDIS. And, well...” She trailed off awkwardly, glanced at the young man standing beside her before looking to Jenny.

The Doctor sniffed and didn’t respond. Donna shifted awkwardly, and started looking around the room to try and give them the illusion of space and that she wasn’t listening. Which was rather difficult, considering the parameters of the cell. But above the door, there was a string of numbers. 60120716.

“More numbers,” she murmured, accidentally catching the Doctor’s attention. “They’ve got to mean something.”

“Makes as much sense as the Breath of Life story,” the Doctor commented dryly.

Across the corridor, Rose wrinkled her nose. “The what?”

“Breath of Life story Cobb told us,” the Doctor explained. “Tried telling us that a great god breathed life into the universe.”

Jenny frowned. “You mean that’s not true?”

Donna shook her head. “No, it’s a myth. Isn’t it, Doctor?”

“Yes, but there could still be something real in that temple,” he admitted, sparing a brief glance at Rose and the young man. “Something that’s become a myth. A piece of technology, a weapon.”

“So the Source could be a weapon, and we’ve just given directions to Captain Nutjob?” Donna asked.

Across the corridor, Rose grinned. “Sounds about right,” she admitted to the redhead.

“We need to get out of here,” the Doctor spoke up, glancing between Donna and Rose. “We need to find Martha and stop Cobb from slaughtering the Hath.” He trailed off as he saw Jenny watching him carefully. “What? What are you staring at?”

Jenny grinned at him. “You keep insisting you’re not a soldier, but look at you, drawing up strategies like a proper general.”

Even from the opposite cell, Rose and her son could see the Doctor stiffen.

“No, no,” the Doctor retorted, “I’m trying to stop the fighting.”

“Isn’t every soldier?” Jenny asked.

At that, the Doctor spluttered. “Well, I suppose, but that’s, that’s... Technically, I haven’t got time for this. Donna, give me your phone. Time for an upgrade.”

Donna handed her mobile over, looking slightly perplexed. As the Doctor pulled the sonic from his pocket and set about fiddling with Donna’s phone, Jenny turned her attention to the opposite cell.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” she asked Rose’s son, who blinked back at her uncertainly. “He’s a soldier, he’s drawing up strategies and giving orders.” She nodded at Donna’s phone in the Doctor’s hands. “Creating weapons.”

In the opposite cell, Rose’s son shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not... Don’t make me part of this.”

Jenny’s smile faded a little at his words. “But you came out of the machine!” she protested. “You’re the same as me.”

“I’m not,” he insisted, and even the Doctor stopped tinkering for a few moments to watch him. “I’m not like you.”

The Doctor gave Rose a questioning look and she shrugged. “Cobb thinks I contaminated him,” she told him with a small grin. “Seems he picked up a bit of the Bad Wolf in my DNA. His eyes glowed earlier.”

Donna blinked, and looked at the Doctor, who looked just as stunned.

“So he doesn’t...” the Doctor began slowly. “He’s not a soldier?”

Rose looked at her son for a few moments before turning back to the Doctor. “Don’t know, but he wouldn’t take the gun they tried to give him.”

On the opposite side of the corridor, Jenny shifted uncomfortably.


	3. Chapter 3

“Martha, you’re alive!”

After the discovery that Rose’s son didn’t share Jenny’s tendencies to want to join in the fight, there had been an uncomfortable silence as the Doctor set about trying to contact Martha. Donna had broken the silence to briefly explain what had happened to their other friend to Rose, but beyond that things were tense.

“I’m with Donna,” the Doctor was telling Martha. “We’re fine. What about you?”

“And Jenny,” Donna interrupted. “She’s fine too. And Rose.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes a little, but continued talking. “Yes, alright, and Jenny. That’s the woman form the machine. The soldier. My daughter, except she isn’t. She’s... She’s... Anyway, we’ve found a friend of mine too, so we should be able to find you soon. Where are you?”

Rose watched as the Doctor continued talking to Martha then, Jenny looking like an outcast in the corner of the cell. In their own cell, her son had slid down to sit on the floor, and was watching her carefully.

“You alright?” she asked quietly, kneeling down beside him.

He shrugged and said nothing.

“I can tell something’s wrong,” Rose continued quietly. “You get the same look on your face as I do when something’s bothering me.”

He sighed and looked away for a few moments before turning back to her.   
“Jenny has a name.”

“Yeah, she does,” Rose responded slowly.

“Even though the Doctor doesn’t think she’s his daughter. He still named her.”

Rose glanced across the corridor before returning her attention to her son then. “I think maybe that was more Donna than the Doctor.”

They’d spoken briefly about the Doctor before they’d even known he was on the planet. It had been a way to pass the time, and her son- while still having absorbed a large chunk of tactical knowledge and military history from the machine- seemed rather interested in learning more about his family than anything else. So Rose had told him about the Doctor, and a bit about her parents and younger brother too.

“I don’t have a name.”

At that, Rose blinked. “I didn’t... I didn’t realise,” she murmured as it slowly sank in. “It didn’t even cross my mind.” She took a deep breath. “What about Peter?”

He blinked. “A- After Grandad?”

Rose smiled at that, although a little sadly, and nodded. “Yeah. You remind me of him. An’ he was a good man.”

She watched as her son processed that for several moments before, finally, he nodded. “I think I’d like that.” 

Rose grinned at that, and moments later, Peter was hugging her tight. She pressed a kiss to his hair and allowed him to stay cuddled up close to her, sparing a brief glance at the opposite cell. The only one watching them was Jenny, who was watching them a little wistfully.

Moments later, the Doctor was glaring at the mobile in his hand, drawing all eyes back to him.

“Martha’s battery must have died,” he groused, before looking across at Rose and Peter. He seemed to freeze, for a split second, at the sight of Peter in his mother’s arms, but he recovered himself quickly with only the briefest of glances at Jenny.

“What now, then?” Donna asked as she accepted her phone back from the Doctor.

But in the distance, they could hear the sound of heavy boots, of soldiers moving about, and the odd cry of “to war!”

“They’re getting ready to move out,” the Doctor noted, face dark. “We have to get past that guard.”

“I don’t think he likes coming near us,” Rose noted from her own cell. “Not after mine and Peter’s eyes ended up glowing.”

The sudden fact that Rose was addressing the young man in her cell as ‘Peter’ didn’t escape anyone’s attention, and the Doctor watched her carefully for a few moments before deciding it was a conversation to be had once they were back on the TARDIS.

“I can deal with him,” Jenny piped up suddenly in the silence.

The Doctor’s eyes went wide, and he pulled his gaze from Rose to stare at the other blonde. “No, no, no, no. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Doctor-” Rose began, but she was cut off by an angry Jenny.

“What?”

The Doctor stared down at her. “You belong here, with them.”

“She belongs with us,” Donna interrupted. “With you. She’s your daughter.”

The Doctor rounded on Donna instead then. “She’s a soldier. She came out of that machine!”

Donna rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, I know that bit. But Rose accepted her son, and he came out of the same machine!”

“That’s... That’s different,” the Doctor faltered, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “Peter’s inherited the Bad Wolf from Rose, it’s physical proof.”

“Have you got that stethoscope?” Donna asked abruptly, already holding her hand out for it. “Give it to me, come on.”

Somewhat reluctantly, the Doctor handed over his stethoscope, and watched as Donna turned to Jenny with it, slipping the buds into her ears.

“What are you doing?” Jenny asked as Donna moved closer.

“It’s alright,” Donna soothed. “Just hold still.”

She pressed the bell against Jenny’s chest then, and listened. A heavy silence fell over both cells as Rose and Peter watched the events unfold from the other side of the hallway. After several long moments, Donna ushered the Doctor over, taking the buds from her ears.

“Come here. Listen, and then tell me where she belongs.”

The Doctor did as he was told, although he didn’t look convinced. There were another few seconds of silence, before the Doctor spoke. “Two hearts.” He looked across to Rose then, seeking assurance.

“Exactly,” Donna said gently.

“Like Rose?” Jenny asked, recalling what the other woman had said earlier.

Rose nodded. “And your Dad.”

The Doctor looked away. Jenny’s brow furrowed.

“So I’m a... A Time Lady?” she asked slowly.

There was a long pause, and all eyes came to rest on the Doctor once more.

“You’re an echo, that’s all.”

He made to move away then, to distance himself from Jenny even in the small cell.

“Doctor,” Rose called softly from the other cell. “Just-”

“No,” the Doctor interrupted suddenly, brow furrowed and jaw clenched. “A Time Lord is so much more. A sum of knowledge, a code, a shared history, a shared suffering. It’s more than just having two hearts.”

“But you said Mum was a Time Lady,” Peter said suddenly from his cell. “You said you had to do tests, but that it sounded like that’s what she was. So why isn’t Jenny?”

The Doctor stared at the younger man then, holding his gaze in a way that usually made people look away. But just like his mother, Peter only raised his chin slightly, staring back defiantly.

Eventually, it was the Doctor who broke the gaze. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all gone now. Forever.”

“What happened?” Jenny asked cautiously, eyes wide.

“There was a war.”

“Like this one?” Jenny frowned.

The Doctor laughed coldly. “Bigger,” he responded. “Much bigger.”

Jenny watched him carefully. “And you fought, and killed?”

The Doctor clenched his jaw. “Yes.”

“Then how are we different?”

Jenny’s question hung in the air, huge and ominous and unavoidable. Jenny kept her eyes on the Doctor, even as he refused to look at anyone. Donna shifted uncomfortably, unsure what to do. Peter looked to his mum for support, and Rose, like Jenny, kept her gaze on the Doctor.

After several long moments, Rose turned from the Doctor and instead looked to her son. Taking a breath, she pressed the palm of her hand first to the left side of his chest, and then the right. The steady thump of his hearts beat back at her.

“Doctor,” she began softly, “I know that Gallifrey’s gone. Nothin’ can ever change that. But the Time Lords, they’re not gone. Not now. You’re not the last of your kind, ‘cause there’s me. An’ Jenny, an’ Peter. Maybe I wasn’t born a Time Lady, but you said yourself, it sounds like I might be one now. Jenny’s definitely a Time Lady, she came from your DNA. An’ Peter... Well, Peter came from me. He’s got two hearts, like me, an’ whatever we are, we’re the same.” She took a breath. “An’ whatever we are, you’ve got us.”

The Doctor met Rose’s eyes then, across the expanse of cold concrete corridor, and a hint of a smile ghosted across his face.

~0~0~

“Hey.” Jenny grinned at Cline, her face pressed close to the bars of the cell as he stood on the other side.

He glanced round at the sound of Jenny’s voice, finally tearing his gaze from Rose and Peter to look at the occupants of the cell behind him.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he told her, sparing a brief glance back at Peter and Rose. Evidently, Rose hadn’t been joking when she said that the glowing of their eyes earlier had freaked him out a little. “I’m on duty.”

“I know,” Jenny beamed at him. “Guarding me. So, does that mean I’m dangerous, or that I need protecting?”

“Protecting from what?” Cline asked, although his gaze once more flitted to the opposite cell.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jenny shrugged. “Men like you?”

And before Cline could form a response, Jenny had hauled him close to the bars and was snogging him breathless. Moments later, she’d managed to snake her hand round to where his pistol was strapped, and less than thirty seconds later it was jammed against his belly.

“Keep quiet and open the door,” Jenny murmured as he pulled away in shock.

Further back in the cell, Donna smirked at the Doctor, who looked baffled. 

“I’d like to see you try that.”

Cline let them out, although he was fumbling with the keys so badly upon opening Rose’s and Peter’s cell that he dropped them twice before the Doctor took pity and unlocked the cell himself.

“We really wouldn’t hurt you, you know,” Peter told Cline as he passed him. 

The soldier looked unconvinced.

They left Cline tied up and gagged in the cell block, but they didn’t get too far when they reached a flight of metal stairs with a guard at the bottom.

“That’s the way out,” the Doctor told them quietly, eyes already scanning the area for another route.

Beside him, Jenny looked at the pistol she’d taken from Cline.

“Don’t you dare,” the Doctor responded quickly, following her gaze.

Jenny blinked, looking a little hurt. “I wasn’t-” she began, but broke off, looking to Rose instead. Rose reached down and squeezed the younger woman’s arm.

“Let me distract this one,” Donna said, already tossing her hair back. “I’ve picked up a few womanly wiles over the years.”

But before Donna could move forward, the Doctor stilled her with a hand on her arm.

“Let’s save your wiles for later,” he told her, and behind them Peter stifled a laugh. “In case of emergency.”

Donna looked more than a little put-out by that, but the Doctor was soon preoccupied with rummaging through his pockets instead. Only about thirty seconds later, a small clockwork mouse came to a stop behind the guard. The guard blinked down at it, and stooped to pick it up. As he stood, he was hit from behind by Peter. The guard hit the ground with a thud and there was a long pause.

“I was going to distract him, not clobber him!” the Doctor protested. “Blimey.” He looked to Rose. “That’s your mother’s side, that is.”

Rose just shrugged, and Jenny blinked at Peter, a slight smile on her face. 

“I thought you said you weren’t like me,” she reminded him.

Peter sniffed, and shrugged. “I don’t do guns,” he responded after a moment. “I didn’t use a gun. Anyway, it worked, didn’t it?”

The Doctor had stooped to search the guard’s pockets, and straightened back up then with a map in his hands. “They must all have a copy of that new map,” he noted. “Just stay here.” He glanced at Jenny and Peter. “Don’t hurt anyone.”

~0~0~

The Doctor stared down at the map once more as he slowly led them along yet another corridor.

“Wait. This is it. The hidden tunnel,” he told them, staring at the blank wall in front of them. “There must be a control panel.”

He and Rose began looking around for a mechanism or control panel, but Donna found herself distracted by more numbers on the wall. 60120714.

“It’s another of those numbers,” she noted with a frown. “They’re everywhere.”

The Doctor answered, but didn’t look round. “The original builders must have left them. Some old cataloguing system.”

Donna, however, was still frowning. “You got a pen?” she asked. “Bit of paper? Because, do you see, the numbers are counting down. This one ends in one-four. The prison cell said one-six.”

The Doctor handed over a bit of paper and a pen, and Peter and Jenny watched in fascination.

“Always thinking,” Jenny told them, “all of you. Who are you people?”

At that, the Doctor looked up. “I told you. I’m the Doctor.”

“Mum said you have a spaceship,” Peter chipped in suddenly. “A TARDIS.”

The Doctor looked to Rose at that, and she shrugged, flashing him a smile. “Didn’t have much else to talk about,” she told him. “I told him about Mum and Dad, an’ Tony. Then I told him about you.”

The Doctor grinned. Donna rolled her eyes.

“Oh, get a room, you two,” she mumbled.

“So you don’t have a name?” Jenny asked, pulling the conversation back to the Doctor. “Are you an anomaly too?”

“No.”

Donna snorted at that. “Oh, come off it. You’re the most anomalous bloke I’ve ever met.”

The Doctor pointedly ignored her, and finally located the control panel, pulling the panel off and rooting about inside. “Here it is.”

“And Time Lords,” Jenny continued. “What are they for, exactly?”

At that, the Doctor spluttered, and turned back to look at them. “For? They’re not, they’re not for anything.”

“So what do you do?” Jenny asked.

“Get arrested, mostly,” Peter told her seriously. “At least, that’s what Mum said. Mum said that Nan once said he goes looking for trouble.”

“Oi!” the Doctor protested. “I did tell her trouble’s just the bits in between. We don’t always get arrested.”

“No,” Rose agreed with a smirk. “Only three times in every five, or so.”

The Doctor gave her a look at that, and turned his attention back to the panel. “I travel through time and space.”

“He saves planets, rescues civilisations, defeats terrible creatures,” Donna explained.

“Gets arrested,” Rose chimed in, grinning.

Donna grinned back. “And runs a lot. Seriously, there’s an outrageous amount of running involved.”

The door slid open then, revealing another corridor where once had been a dead end.

“Got it.” The Doctor announced somewhat unnecessarily.

Somewhere behind them, the sound of Cobb’s voice reached them, and the five friends glanced at each other.

“Now,” the Doctor spoke up quickly, “what were you saying about running?”

~0~0~

They skidded to a halt as they reached a cluster of criss-crossed laser beams cutting off their path.

“That’s not mood lighting, is it?” Donna asked slowly.

“Not unless we’ve stumbled into a nightclub,” Rose responded.

The Doctor pulled the clockwork mouse from his pocket, tossing it into the lasers. The moment it touched a beam, it disintegrated. Donna blinked.

“No, I didn’t think so.”

The Doctor clenched his jaw, surveying the beams. “Arming device,” he told them, before quickly locating what must have been the control box on the nearby wall.

As the Doctor worked, Donna noted more of the strings of numbers on the walls. She quickly noted them down. 60120713. 

“There’s more of these,” she said, pointing them out to Rose. “Always eight numbers, counting down the closer we get.”

“It’s just a cataloguing system, isn’t it?” Rose asked with a frown. “Like the Doctor said?”

Donna shrugged, still staring at the numbers. 

“Right,” the Doctor announced suddenly, prying the front off the control box, “here we go.”

“You’d better be quick,” Donna told him.

Somewhere nearby they could hear Cobb’s voice drawing closer.

“The general,” Jenny said, and she sounded a little worried. But she was moving back the way they came then, and the Doctor’s head whipped round.

“Where are you going?” he asked, wide-eyed.

Jenny blinked at him. “I can hold them up.”

“Jenny,” Rose began, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“We don’t need any more dead,” the Doctor told her seriously. “You’re staying with us.”

Jenny looked torn.

“What happens if Jenny doesn’t do anything?” Peter asked suddenly. “Do you have a plan.”

The Doctor frowned at him. “The plan is to get Martha back, find out what this Source is, and see if we can stop this.”

Peter frowned. “But how?”

“I’m trying to save your life,” Jenny added hotly. “I know you don’t like guns, but it’s them or us.”

The Doctor turned back to concentrate on the lasers. “It doesn’t mean you have to kill them.”

Jenny glared back at him.

The Doctor sighed, and glanced at Rose, who gave him an encouraging smile. “Listen to me,” he said lowly. “The killing. After a while, it infects you. And once it does, you’re never rid of it.”

A heavy silence hung over them.

“We don’t have a choice,” Jenny argued softly.

“We always have a choice,” the Doctor countered.

Jenny watched him carefully for a few moments, before looking to Rose, and Donna and Peter, and then back again.

“I’m sorry.”

The Doctor’s eyes were wide. “Jenny-”

But she was off, disappearing back down the corridor they’d come down, Cline’s gun in her hand. The Doctor watched her go, before taking a breath and turning back to the wiring.

There was the sound of open fire coming from a little way away then, and Donna and Rose shared a look as Peter stiffened. Jenny was out there, in the middle of it all.

“I told you,” the Doctor said suddenly, glancing up at his wiring to glare at Donna and Rose. “Nothing but a soldier.”

Donna frowned. “She’s trying to help.”

“She’s doing what she thinks is right,” Rose agreed. “Would you say the same about me? I arrived here with a gun, Doctor. Only reason I don’t still have it is because when I landed I dropped it and I couldn’t get to it before I was dragged away to be processed. And I only had it for protection, on Dad’s insistence. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have used it if absolutely necessary. Jenny didn’t use the gun earlier, and she’s only using it now because she thinks you’re in danger.”

The Doctor looked at her for a long while then, before clenching his jaw and returning once more to the wiring.

“Jenny,” he called out suddenly, “come on.”

They heard Jenny call back that she was coming, but there were no footsteps. The lasers blinked out, and Donna sighed in relief.

“That’s it!” she told the Doctor in case he hadn’t noticed.

“Jenny, leave it!” he called out again. “Let’s go!”

The Doctor and Donna set off through the space previously occupied by lasers, but it was halfway down the corridor that the Time Lord noticed that neither Rose nor Peter were following. When he looked back, he saw them both watching for Jenny, and his hearts clenched. Urging Donna on without them, he turned back. He grabbed Rose and Peter and hauled them down the corridor despite their protests. They’d just reached the other end when Jenny came running towards them, a grin on her face. But just as she neared the section of corridor, the beams flickered back on again and she skidded to a halt, the grin falling from her face.

“The circuit’s looped back!” the Doctor said, wide-eyed as he stared down the corridor at his daughter.

“No chance the sonic screwdriver can reverse it?” Rose asked nervously.

Donna nodded furiously. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, zap it back?”

The Doctor looked pained. “No,” he admitted, “the controls are back there. It won’t work at this distance.”

“Isn’t there something Jenny can do herself?” Peter asked. “Whatever it was you did?”

Again, the Doctor just looked pained at the suggestion. “Not without the sonic.”

At the other end, Jenny was beginning to look more than a little worried. “They’re coming!”

“Wait...” the Doctor began, and it was obvious he was desperately trying to think of something. “Just... There isn’t... Jenny, I can’t.”

Jenny looked grim at that, but took a breath and forced a smile. “I’ll have to manage on my own. Watch and learn, father.”

Jenny took a step back, put her arms in the air, and stepped forward, stepping straight into a somersault. Peter blinked as Jenny performed a series of twists and somersaults through the beams, and looked to his mum and the Doctor but they were looking just as shocked. Before he’d fully had time to process it, Peter saw that Jenny was their end of the laser beams, arms in the air and a grin on her face.

“No way,” Donna gasped out. “But that was impossible!”

The Doctor grinned. “Not impossible,” he countered happily. “Just a bit unlikely. Brilliant!” He was moving towards Jenny then, sweeping her up in a hug. “You were brilliant! Brilliant!”

“I didn’t kill him,” Jenny announced happily as she pulled back out of the hug. “General Cobb, I could have killed him but I didn’t. You were right. I had a choice.”

But the happy moment was ruined then as Cobb and a group of soldiers appeared at the other end of the corridor. Rose grabbed Peter, and Donna grabbed Jenny and together they ran around the bend in the corridor, out of the firing line. The Doctor, however, remained.

“At arms,” Cobb instructed, eyes locked on the Doctor.

The Doctor stared back. “I warned you, Cobb. If the Source is a weapon, I’m going to make sure you never use it.”

Cobb just smirked. “One of us is going to die today and it won’t be me.”

The soldiers opened fire and the Doctor ducked round the bend in the corridor, disappearing from their line of sight.


	4. Chapter 4

“So, you travel together, but you’re not together?”

Jenny was walking down the corridor side by side with Donna, with Peter in front of them and the Doctor and Rose behind them.

“What?” Donna asked before laughing. “No, no. Have you seen those two together?” She gave a significant look behind them at the Doctor and Rose, who were walking along hand in hand, their heads bowed together as they talked quietly and shared small smiles.

“Ok,” Jenny conceded after a glance behind her, “I see your point. But hadn’t he and Rose been separated?”

Donna nodded. “I don’t know the whole story,” she told the younger woman, “but it was hard for your dad. I reckon it was hard for Rose, too. But me and your dad? We’re just friends, that’s all.”

“And Dad and Rose?” Jenny asked. “Are they together?”

Peter must have overheard them then, even as the Doctor and Rose seemed too preoccupied to do so. He spared a glance at his mum and the Doctor before dropping back to walk with Jenny and Donna.

“I don’t know,” Donna said again. “You’d have to ask them.”

“When Mum told me about the Doctor earlier, she didn’t say they were together,” Peter told Jenny quietly. “But I know they were best friends.”

Jenny took a few moments to mull that over, before turning back to Donna.  
“And what’s it like, the travelling?” 

Donna smiled a little at that. “Oh, never a dull moment. It can be terrifying, brilliant and funny, sometimes all at the same time. I’ve seen some amazing things though. Whole new worlds.”

Both Peter and Jenny beamed at that.

“Mum was telling me earlier,” Peter admitted. “Sounds amazing.”

Jenny nodded in agreement. “I’d love to see new worlds!”

“You will,” Donna told them with a smile. “You both will. Won’t they, Doctor?”

They turned to look at the Doctor and Rose then, who both looked a little startled at having been dragged into a conversation. Clearly, they’d been worlds away.

“Hmm?” the Doctor asked with a small frown.

“Do you suppose Jenny and Peter will see any new worlds?” Donna prompted with a knowing smile.

The Doctor shared a slightly doe-eyed look with Rose then, who beamed back with a tongue-touched smile. “I suppose so,” the Doctor admitted after a moment.

Jenny blinked. “You, you mean you’ll take me with you?”

“Well,” the Doctor responded with a grin, “we can’t leave you or Peter here, can we?”

Rose was beaming at them too, clinging to the Doctor’s arm happily as her cheek rested on his shoulder. 

“Oh, thank you!” Jenny gushed happily. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”   
She bounded over and hugged first her dad, then Rose.  
Peter hung back a little even as Jenny bounced away down the corridor ahead of them.

“I... Are you sure?” Peter asked a little more hesitantly. 

“Of course we are, sweetheart,” Rose responded quickly, the term of endearment slipping out even without her realising.

Slowly, a grin spread across his face, and Peter beamed happily.

Suddenly, Jenny reappeared beside him, and was pulling on his arm. “They’ve said yes. Come on, let’s get a move on.” She tugged Peter away down the corridor then, and Donna fell into step with the Doctor and Rose.

“Careful you two,” he called after them. “There might be traps.”

“Oh, leave them,” Rose grinned happily. “They’ll be fine. I survived bein’ with you at nineteen, they’ll be alright.”

“Blimey, you don’t do things by halves, do you?” Donna asked the Doctor teasingly as they continued down the corridor.

He gave her a questioning look and she grinned at him.

“Well,” she pointed out calmly, “this morning it was just me and you, and Martha for a quick trip. Now you’ve got Rose back and the pair of you have two kids in tow!”

The Doctor blinked at that. The slight calm that had washed over him seemed to dissipate almost immediately at Donna’s words, and Rose squeezed his hand in reassurance.

“Oh,” Donna blinked at the sudden change of mood, “I know that look. I see it a lot round our way. Blokes with pushchairs and frowns. You’ve got dad-shock.”

“Dad-shock?” the Doctor echoed even as Rose sniggered into his arm.

Donna nodded knowingly. “Sudden unexpected fatherhood. Takes a bit of getting used to.”

The Doctor let out a sigh then, and Rose rubbed his arm gently. “No, it’s not that.”

“Well what is it then?” Donna demanded. “Having Jenny and Peter in the TARDIS, is that it? What, they’re gonna cramp your style? Like you’ve got a sports car and they’re going to turn it into a people-carrier? Rose is alright with it, aren’t you?”

“Donna, it’s not that,” Rose began gently.

“I’ve been a father before.”

Donna blinked, and stared down the corridor where Peter and Jenny were still bounding on ahead.

“Oh,” she managed, and glanced over at Rose.

“I lost all that a long time ago, along with everything else,” the Doctor continued quietly. “And Rose helped with that, somewhat. But this is still... Unexpected. It’s what Rose and I were discussing, while you were talking with Jenny and Peter. It’s... It’s a lot to take in. I’ve lost my people, Rose is now an entire universe away from her parents...” He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s a lot to take in.”

“But this is what you want?” Donna asked nervously.

Rose gave her a small smile. “It’s gonna be tough,” she admitted slowly, “on all four of us. But we agreed, we couldn’t leave them here. And not just because they’re Time Lords. They’re...” Rose paused, looked towards the Doctor for a moment. “They’re our kids. We couldn’t leave them behind.”

The sound of gunfire ripped through the air then, and Jenny and Peter came running back.

“It’s Cobb,” Peter told them, wide-eyed.

“They’ve blasted through the beams,” Jenny added. “Time to run again? Love the running, yeah?”

The Doctor grinned, tightening his grip on Rose’s hand. “Love the running!”  
And together, all five of them ran.

~0~0~

They’d reached a dead end.

“We’re trapped,” Donna pointed out, almost needlessly.

“Can’t be,” the Doctor countered. “This must be the Temple. This is a door.”

There were more numbers above the door, too. 60120712. Donna blinked up at the numbers even as the Doctor worked on opening the door.

“And again,” she said as she processed the numbers. “We’re down to one-two now.”

But before she could make any more headway on the numbers, the Doctor had found the door mechanism.

“I can hear them,” Jenny told them, torn between nervousness and excitement.

“Is it normal to feel this excited?” Peter asked his mum in confusion.

Rose just grinned. “It’s the adrenaline,” she told him.

Donna was still frowning at the numbers, though. It simply didn’t make sense to her. “These can’t be a cataloguing system,” she said, although no one seemed to be listening. Whatever it was, it seemed to be at the back of her mind, like when you were trying to recognise a song but you can’t place it.

“They’re getting closer,” Jenny piped up from where she’d taken up a post at the end of the corridor to look out for Cobb.

The Doctor looked over at her. “Then get back here.”

“You’d be better back here, sweetheart,” Rose added. “Don’t want to give your dad a heart attack.”

“They’re too similar,” Donna was saying again. “Too familiar.” On the tip of her tongue...

The door slid open then and the Doctor bundled them all through before Donna could finish processing the numbers.

“They’re coming,” Jenny told them eagerly as she cleared the entrance. “Close the door.”

The Doctor did as he was told, and the door slid back into place behind them.   
Jenny grinned, but was a little out of breath.

“Oh, that was close,” she said.

“No fun otherwise,” the Doctor told her, although Rose could tell he was a little shaken by Jenny putting herself in danger.

She reached across and squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry,” she told him quietly, “I feel the same.”

The Doctor gave her a tight smile in return. “At least Peter doesn’t seem to have inherited your propensity to wander off.”

“It’s not what I’d call a temple,” Donna said, drawing the attention back to the room.

It was large, but not any sort of old ruin they might have been expecting.

“It’s not that old, is it,” Peter noted suddenly.

Jenny nodded in agreement. “It looks more like-”

“Fusion drive transport,” the Doctor concluded. “It’s a spaceship.”

Donna blinked. “What, the original one? The one the first colonists arrived in?”

“And then they built their civilisation around it?” Rose asked. “But like Peter said, it’s not that old.”

“No,” the Doctor agreed, “it’s still powered up and functioning. The power cells would have run down after all that time, if it was the original. Come on.”

He led them up a flight of stairs then, but stopped short as sparks flew from a door. Someone was cutting through it.

“It’s the Hath,” both Peter and Jenny said in unison, before sharing a look.

“That door’s not going to last much longer,” Jenny added. “And if General Cobb gets through down there, war’s going to break out.”

The Doctor had crossed to a computer screen by then, and Rose followed him quickly.

“Ship’s log?” Rose asked.

The Doctor nodded. “Yep,” he responded. He tapped on the screen to bring up more information. “First wave of Human/Hath co-colonisation of planet Messaline.” He read aloud the information then, and Peter, Jenny and Donna all drifted closer.

Jenny frowned when he finished speaking. “So it is the original ship?”

“What happened?” Donna questioned.

“Phase one, construction,” the Doctor repeated. “They used robot drones to build the city.”

“Is the war mentioned, though?” Rose asked, leaning over to get a better look at the screen. She scrolled down the page.

“And how is this ship still running if it’s the original?” Peter broke in.

“Final entry,” the Doctor once more read aloud. “Mission commander dead. Still no agreement on who should assume leadership. Hath and humans have divided into factions.” He blinked. “That must be it. A power vacuum. The crew divided into two factions and turned on each other. Start using the progenation machines, suddenly you’ve got two armies fighting a never-ending war.”

“Two armies,” Jenny pointed out gravely, “who are now both outside.”

“Look at that,” Donna said suddenly, and pointed at the string of numbers above a screen that displayed the whole of Messaline. 60120724. 

“It’s like the numbers in the tunnel,” the Doctor noted.

“No, no, no,” Donna smiled, shaking her head, “but listen, I spent six months working as a temp in Hounslow Library, and I mastered the Dewey Decimal System in two days flat. I’m good with numbers. It’s staring us in the face!”

“Not my face,” Peter mumbled.

Met with blank looks, Donna grinned. “It’s the date,” she explained.   
“Assuming the first two numbers are some big old space date, then you’ve got year, month, day. It’s the other way round, like it is in America.”

The Doctor blinked, and then grinned. “Oh! It’s the New Byzantine Calendar!”

Peter blinked, and looked at his mum. “Is that supposed to mean something?” he asked on a whisper.

“The codes are completion dates for each section,” Donna realised, eyes going wide. “They finish it, they stamp the date on. So the numbers aren’t counting down, they’re going out from here, day by day, as the city got built.”

The Doctor grinned. “Yes. Oh, good work, Donna!”

“So it’s a flatpack city? Like a giant Ikea.” Rose established with a grin. “They build it one section at a time, and instead of keeping a manual record of when each section is completed, they record the date on the actual structure.”

“Yeah,” Donna nodded, “but you’re still not getting it. The first number I saw back there, was sixty twelve oh seven seventeen. Well, look at the date today.”

Everyone did.

“Oh seven twenty-four,” the Doctor read aloud.

Rose blinked. “That’s...” she began, before trailing off and blinking at the Doctor.

But Peter and Jenny just looked confused. “That’s what?” Peter prompted his mum.

“What does it mean?” Jenny asked.

The Doctor seemed to be staring at nothing as he spoke, his gaze far off as everything slotted into place in his big Time Lord brain. “Seven days.”

Beside him, Donna nodded. “That’s it. Seven days.”

“Just seven days,” Rose added. “To build all this.”

“You mean,” Peter began slowly, “that the whole of the city was built in seven days? But why is that important?”

The Doctor swallowed, and looked at Peter and Jenny carefully before speaking. “It’s important,” he told them with a breath, “because it means it’s only been seven days since the war broke out.”

“This war,” Donna continued, “started seven days ago. Just a week. A week!”

But Jenny was shaking her head. It couldn’t be right. Everything she’d learned, everything she knew since being born... What she was hearing couldn’t be right. She looked to Peter, and was slightly relieved to see that he was still looking a little confused too. Despite the fact that Peter had evidently inherited something extra from Rose which deterred him from following the pre-programmed route of being a soldier, he’d still been born with the same knowledge as Jenny, and at least he’d be able to back her up.

“They said years,” Jenny protested, still looking at Peter, who was staring at their parents. “Didn’t they, Peter? All the information we were born with, the war’s been going on years!”

Peter swallowed, tearing his gaze from their parents to look at Jenny and nod slowly. “Yeah,” he agreed, and the words seemed to stick in his dry throat.

“Did they really?” Rose interrupted gently, a wary and concerned expression on her face. “Were those the words they used?”

Peter and Jenny looked at each other again.

“I... No,” Peter admitted at long last.

“They said generations,” Donna piped up. “And if they’re all like you two, and they’re products of those machines-”

But before she could finish, Rose was taking over. “There’s nothing to even say that you two are the same generation.” She looked to the Doctor. “Peter and I were in that cell for what was probably a couple of hours before you were brought in. How many more people had been ‘processed’ in between me and you? Peter could be five, six, seven generations older than Jenny.”  
The Doctor shook his head. “When we arrived, they said they hadn’t processed anyone since the issue that morning. I’m guessing that was you and Peter. No one was processed between Peter and Jenny, they’re most likely the same generation.”

“Generation 5000,” Peter and Jenny both said in unison, before looking at one another.

The Doctor nodded then. “See?” he told Rose. “Same generation.”

“But that’s only because they thought I’d broken their machine,” Rose pointed out. “If I hadn’t arrived, they could have done half a dozen rounds of processing by the time you got here. On a normal day, how many times do people get processed? Morning shift could produce eight, nine, ten generations between morning and lunch, and then the same in the afternoon...”

“They could have twenty generations in a day,” the Doctor realised, blinking as he processed just what Donna and Rose were hinting at. “Each generation gets killed in the war, passes on the legend.” He looked from Rose, to Donna, and back again, grinning. “Oh, you two are geniuses!”

“But,” Jenny broke in in confusion, “all the buildings, the encampments. They’re in ruins.”

The Doctor shook his head. “No, they’re not ruined,” he countered. “They’re just empty.”

Rose wrinkled her nose. “What, waitin’ for more people to be bred?”

“They’ve mythologised their entire history,” the Doctor nodded. “The Source must be part of that too. Come on.”

~0~0~

The Doctor led them further into the ship, and no one was quite sure he actually knew where they were going, but it wasn’t long before they bumped into a familiar face.

“Doctor!” Martha grinned when she saw him.

“Martha! Oh, I should have known you wouldn’t stay away from the excitement,” the Doctor told her with a grin.

Still grinning, Martha turned to Donna, greeting her with a smile too. “Donna.”

Donna grinned back, but eyed Martha’s clothes as she did so. “You’re filthy! What happened?”

Martha shrugged then. “I, er, took the surface route,” she admitted, before her eyes finally alighted on Rose and Peter. “These your friends you mentioned on the phone, Doctor? Thought you only said ‘friend’, I must have misheard.”

The Doctor just stood there, blinking, and Rose rolled her eyes, before giving   
Martha a smile. “I’m Rose,” she said. “Rose Tyler.”

Martha blinked. “Oh my god,” she whispered, so quietly Rose barely heard. “He found you.”

Rose was a little taken aback by the look on Martha’s face- a look that, if she didn’t know better, she’d describe as ‘devastation’. Donna snorted at Martha’s words.

“More like she found him,” she said, oblivious to the look on Martha’s face. “Well, she was locked in a cell, but still.”

Peter blinked, and looked between his mum and Martha, before deciding he should probably introduce himself too.

“I’m Peter,” he said. “Rose’s son.”

Martha looked at him, and if possible she looked even more baffled than before.

“I... I came out of the machine,” he added, and Martha nodded mutely.

Giving a tight smile to Rose and Peter, and clearly still trying to process what was happening, she turned to the Doctor. “Looks like you’ve been busy while I’ve been dealing with the Hath, then.”

The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck a little sheepishly then. “Well...”

But before he could say anything more, they could hear Cobb’s voice in the distance.

“Positions!” 

“That’s the General,” the Doctor announced. “We haven’t got much time.”

“But we don’t even know what we’re looking for,” Donna protested as Martha looked around.

With a slight frown, Martha caught Rose’s eye as she registered something. “Is it me, or can you smell flowers?” she asked, glancing at the other woman.

Rose nodded slowly. “Thought I was imaginin’ it,” she admitted, “but now you mention it... Doctor?”

In the distance, Cobb called out another order.

“Yes,” the Doctor nodded as both Martha and Rose turned to him. “Bougainvillea. I say we follow our nose...”


	5. Chapter 5

Less than a minute later, the Doctor, Rose, Martha, Donna, Jenny and Peter were surrounded by plants. Plants of all shapes and sizes, everywhere they looked was lush greenery and soft petals and spiky stems.

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor grinned as he took it all in. “Yes. Isn’t this brilliant?”

In the centre of the plants was a pedestal with a glowing globe resting on it. A control panel and screen were nearby, while wires ran from the globe and across the floor.

“That’s a bit more than a snow globe, isn’t it?” Rose asked with a grin.

“I’d say,” Martha agreed. “Unless it’s a snow globe from Harrods.”

The group approached it slowly, Peter and Jenny blinking in awe at what surrounded them.

“Is that the Source?” Donna asked, nodding at the globe before looking to the Doctor, who still had his eyes on it.

“It’s beautiful,” Jenny added, drawing closer.

Everything suddenly seemed so peaceful, surrounded by the plants and the strange soft glow of the Source. They couldn’t even hear Cobb or the soldiers, and while none of them were naive to think that they had gone, they couldn’t help but get lost in the moment at least briefly.

“What is it?” Martha asked after several long moments of silence.

Rose nodded. “An’ what’s it for?” She looked across at the Doctor with a grin. “Go on, I know you’re dying to tell us.”

He flashed her a grin. “Terraforming,” he told them. “It’s a third generation terraforming device.”

Donna blinked. “So why are we suddenly in Kew Gardens?”

The Doctor grinned again. “Because that’s what it does.”

“It grows plants?” Peter asked, wrinkling his nose in much the same way as his mum did. The Doctor saw, and smiled softly at him.

“Kind of, yeah,” the Doctor replied. “It does all this,” he gestured around them, “only bigger. Much bigger. It’s in a transit state. Producing all this must help keep it stable before they finally-”

But they didn’t get a chance to find out what it finally did, because all of a sudden they were surrounded on all sides. Humans and Hath blocked them in, guns raised, and the Doctor, Rose, Donna, Martha, Jenny and Peter were trapped in the middle.

“Stop!” the Doctor ordered. “Hold your fire!”

Cobb sneered at him. “What is this?” he demanded. “Some kind of trap?”

The Doctor clenched his jaw. “You said you wanted this war over.”

“I want this war won,” Cobb countered, glancing past the Doctor at the Hath on the other side.

“You can’t win,” the Doctor insisted, and he chanced a glance over at the Hath. At least they weren’t making any sudden movements, and he got the strange feeling they were more willing to listen than Cobb and his men. “No one can. You don’t even know why you’re here. Your whole history, it’s just Chinese whispers, getting more distorted the more it’s passed on. This is the Source.” He gestured towards the globe Martha and Rose had joked was a fancy snow globe. “This is what you’re fighting over. A device to rejuvenate a planet’s ecosystem. It’s nothing mystical. It’s from a laboratory, not some creator. It’s a bubble of gasses. A cocktail of stuff for accelerated evolution. Methane, hydrogen, ammonia, amino acids, proteins, nucleic acids. It’s used to make barren planets habitable. Look around you. It’s not for killing, it’s bringing life. If you allow it, it can lift you out of these dark tunnels and into the bright, bright sunlight. No more fighting, no more killing.” Without warning, he lifted the Source from the pedestal then, holding it above his head. “I’m the Doctor, and I declare this war is over.”

He threw the globe then, and it shattered into hundreds of tiny fragments, the gas and energy curling up into the air and rising towards the ceiling of the spaceship. Humans and Hath alike blinked, and watched, and lowered their weapons.

All except for Cobb.

“What’s happening?” Jenny asked as the gasses continued rising.

“The gasses will escape and trigger the terraforming process,” the Doctor explained as he watched the energy and gasses ascend.

Jenny looked over at him. “What does it mean?”

The Doctor blinked, looked at his daughter, before looking over at Rose and Peter, and back again. He smiled. “It means a new world.”  
Jenny grinned at him, but her grin faded as she suddenly caught sight of something behind the Doctor. Her eyes went wide, and she was moving even before the Doctor could turn to see what was happening.

“No!”

Three voices rang out in unison, all shouting the same word. Jenny’s, as she shoved the Doctor aside. Rose’s, as she began to move towards the pair of them. Peter’s as he was rooted to the spot with fear. The bullet flew from Cobb’s gun. 

And then time seemed to stand still. 

Instead of the impact that had seemed inevitable, the bullet hung in the air just inches from Jenny’s chest, and Cobb’s eyes went wide with fear. Gaping, the Doctor tore his gaze from his daughter to where Rose, Martha, Donna and Peter all were. And then he realised what had happened.

Both Peter’s and Rose’s eyes were glowing gold.

“What exactly’s going on?” Martha asked nervously as she eyed Rose and Peter warily.

The Doctor didn’t answer her. Jenny had stumbled back from the bullet, which still hung in the air, and she stared, wide-eyed at her Dad as he gently nudged her towards Donna, who wrapped a protective arm around the younger woman’s shoulders.

“Rose,” the Doctor began cautiously as he moved across the room. “Rose, let go.”

Blinking, Rose turned to him, the gold light in her eyes dimming somewhat as tears slid down her cheeks. Suddenly, the Doctor was a thousand galaxies away, in a previous body on a space station orbiting Earth.

“Jenny’s safe,” he told her gently. “Look, she’s with Donna. She’s safe.”

Rose opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

“He tried to kill her.” The frightened, broken words were Peter’s, not Rose’s, and the Doctor turned his attention to him.

“Yes,” he admitted, his words drawing Peter’s gaze away from Cobb. “But you stopped him. You and Rose.” The Doctor took a breath. “Your sister’s safe, Peter. You saved her. You don’t have to do anything else.”

Peter looked torn, and the Doctor knew that if he were to convince Peter, he’d need Rose’s help. He turned back to her.

“I want you safe,” she finally managed, and fresh tears coursed down her cheeks. “I want all of you safe. My family.”

“And we are,” the Doctor assured her gently, taking Rose’s hand in his. “But our son’s going to do something he’ll regret if we don’t stop him. He needs you to show him that this is alright. That letting go is alright.”  
Rose smiled slightly at that. “Our son,” she echoed softly. “I like the sound of that.”

The Doctor beamed. “Me too. Oh, Rose Tyler! Me too.”

The golden light had all but faded from Rose’s eyes then, and she looked a little sheepish. “Told you I’d changed,” she mumbled as her cheeks heated up with embarrassment.

“But you did the right thing,” the Doctor told her quietly, squeezing her hand. 

She gave him a tight smile and nodded, then they both turned her attention to Peter.

“Remember what I told Jenny earlier?” the Doctor asked Peter quietly. “Remember what I said about killing?”

Peter nodded slowly, eyes wide and a hint of hazel showing through the gold. “‘ _It doesn’t mean you have to kill them_ ’.”

“We have a choice,” the Doctor reminded him gently. “There’s always a choice. You can kill him, here and now, for threatening me and Jenny.” He glanced behind him at Cobb, who looked more than a little shaken. “Or, you can let go. I don’t mean forgive him, but killing him isn’t necessarily the answer. For all it might help in the short term, in the long run it doesn’t do much at all. It doesn’t stop the rage, or the grief, or the anger. It doesn’t stop the pain. And all you do is stoop to their level.”

Peter swallowed, and the gold receded that little bit more. “What would you do?” he asked quietly. “You and Mum? What would you do, Dad?”

Rose and the Doctor glanced at each other then. An entire lifetime passed behind their eyes, numerous Daleks destroyed in the Time War, the Dalek Emperor vanquished with a wave of Rose’s hand and a stream of golden light. Entire fleets of Dalek ships obliterated, a war that had lasted much longer than it should have, first stopped by him and then by her.

“We,” Rose began carefully, slowly pulling her gaze back to Peter, and Jenny who was not too far away, “want you two to be better than us. We’ve both done stuff that was right, for the situation. We made a call, and we stand by that decision, and even if it was tough we did the right thing. Now you two have to do the same.”

Jenny and Peter shared a look. The golden light was completely gone from Peter’s eyes, and when he turned back to their parents, he nodded slowly.

“I want to go home.”

The Doctor nodded at that, and turned back to Cobb. “We’re gonna be off. We’ve got things to do, me and my family. We’ve only just got started, and we’d rather not waste any more time here.” He took a breath. “But my son’s a braver man than you, Cobb. He gets that from his mother. He wouldn’t kill you. Have you got that? He wouldn’t kill you, even despite what you tried to do.” He looked around then, addressing everyone. Humans and Hath alike. “When you start this new world, this world of human and Hath, remember that. Make the foundation of this society a man who never would.”

~0~0~

“I... I’m sorry,” Rose said quietly as they made their way back to the TARDIS. Martha and Donna were leading the way, followed by Peter and Jenny, and then the Doctor and Rose. “About earlier, with Cobb. I just... I panicked. I’d worked so hard to get back, an’ he was gonna take that away from us.”

“I know,” the Doctor responded softly, squeezing her hand in his and glancing ahead of them at their son and daughter. “I thought I was going to lose Jenny for a moment there, until you and Peter stopped that bullet.” He let out a ragged sigh. “Why would she do that, Rose? Why sacrifice her life for me?”

“You’re her dad,” Rose replied. “Same as I saved my dad from that car, in 1987. Even if it means getting hurt, you still wanna do something.”

The Doctor didn’t look too happy at that.

“Besides,” Rose continued. “She’s like you. Always wanting to help people, protect them.”

He snorted bitterly. “That’s the truth of it. She’s too much like me. Far too much like me. We almost lost her, Rose.”

This time, Rose squeezed his hand. “But we didn’t. Like you told me, and Peter, she’s safe. Cobb didn’t kill her.”

“I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been here,” the Doctor sighed, before dropping a kiss in her hair. “And we’re very lucky that, as much as Jenny takes after me, Peter takes after you. They’ll balance each other out.”

Rose wrinkled her nose. “Again, too much, I think. He’s too much like I was, years ago. Heart’s in the right place, but his brain needs to catch up. He acted before he fully thought about everything.”

The Doctor glanced down at her. “So did you,” he pointed out gently. “He wasn’t the only one I had to talk out of killing Cobb.”

He felt Rose sigh against him. “No,” she admitted after a long while. “But I couldn’t help it. You say Peter’s your son, Doctor. Well, Jenny’s my daughter. Cobb threatened her, an’ I just... I dunno. I snapped.”

“Maternal instinct,” the Doctor murmured into her hair as they continued walking. Their pace had slowed somewhat, but they didn’t attempt to catch up with the others. “Cobb threatened Jenny and the Bad Wolf reared its head.” He grinned slightly then. “Never threaten a mother wolf’s cubs.”

Rose elbowed him in the stomach at that, but a glance down told him she was grinning anyway.

“I suppose,” she sighed. “I’m startin’ to see why Mum slapped you when you took me away for a year, now.”

The Doctor winced at the reminder, and Rose grinned at him.

“Come on,” he told her, picking up his pace and pulling her along as he did so, “let’s catch those kids of ours up.”

~0~0~

Jenny and Peter had been suitably impressed by the TARDIS, and the Doctor was rather smug about it. He was even more smug at how impressed they were by the sheer size, and was still preening as they disappeared off further into the ship to explore.

“You’re loving this,” Donna teased him.

The Doctor just grinned in response.

“So,” Martha smiled, watching the Doctor and Rose together at the console, “did you find out why the TARDIS took us to Messaline?”

The Time Lord nodded. “It was Rose. She’s the reason the TARDIS brought us here in the first place.” 

Martha frowned. “How? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Rose is connected to the TARDIS through something called the Bad Wolf,” the Doctor explained cautiously. “She looked into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the Time Vortex, which is what made her the Bad Wolf.”

“But you’re human?” Martha asked Rose with a frown.

Rose and the Doctor shared a look.

“The Doctor doesn’t think so anymore,” Donna broke in. “Rose said earlier, she has two hearts now.”

At that, Martha’s eyes widened. “You changed your biology?” she asked. “You made yourself into a Time Lord?”

“Time Lady,” the Doctor corrected, “and most likely it was something that happened when Rose absorbed the Time Vortex when she was nineteen.”

Martha’s head was spinning. “And you’re, what? Twenty three? Twenty four now?” 

“Twenty four, yeah,” Rose nodded.

“And your biology has been changing for the past five years?” Martha questioned.

At that, Rose bit her lip. “Not exactly,” she admitted slowly. “I only started changing after I was separated from the Doctor. I’d been in Pete’s World- that’s what we called the parallel world I was trapped in- for maybe six months or so when I started getting these chest pains. Eventually, Mum and Dad made me go and see the medics at Torchwood, and when they did some scans, they realised my body was growing a second heart. My kidneys were changing too, an’ so was my skeleton, but they couldn’t work out how or why. Me an’ Mum put two and two together and figured I was turning into a Time Lady, and we could only guess that it was something I did whilst in possession of the power of the Vortex, when I could see the timelines.”

The Doctor nodded knowingly. “You saw that we’d be separated, and tried to change yourself so that that wouldn’t happen. But instead of changing the events, or even entwining our timelines, you altered your DNA instead.”

“Well,” Rose shrugged, a little embarrassed, “I didn’t quite have full control.”

“No,” the Doctor agreed slowly, Jack Harkness springing unbidden to the forefront of his mind, “you didn’t.”

“But the TARDIS sensed you?” Martha asked, bringing them back to the conversation. “When you got back to this universe?”

Rose shrugged again. “I suppose so. I don’t really know. We developed this, er, travel machine, this Dimension Cannon, so I could. Well, so I could come back.”

The Doctor grinned at that, and Rose rolled her eyes.

“Shut up,” she told him, but she was grinning too. “Anyway, we built this Cannon, but it wasn’t hugely accurate. Powerful, but not accurate. We used my TARDIS key to get a trace of the TARDIS’s energy, and used that reading to try and track you. But it didn’t really work, not at first. Half the time I couldn’t even get out of the parallel universe. But then the pains started getting worse, and it became obvious that I was still the Bad Wolf. So Dad made them tighten the machine up, narrow down the field. The idea was that I’d appear near the TARDIS. Seems I did, just I got here before you. She must have sensed I was in the right universe.”

The Doctor nodded. “You and the TARDIS have a bond. Well, the TARDIS and the Bad Wolf. The old girl must have sensed you would land there, and pulled us there to collect you. Only, by the time we got there, you’d already managed to get yourself locked up.”

“Weren’t you locked up too?” Martha pointed out from the other side of the console.

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed at that, and Rose sniggered.

“Time to go home, Martha?” he asked, already moving to set the coordinates.

“Yeah,” Martha nodded, smiling slightly. “Home. You two lovebirds are driving me barmy anyway.”

Beside her, Donna sighed. “Oh, tell me about it. I’m going to have to live with these two!”

~0~0~

Rose hung back with Jenny and Peter when Martha left, choosing to give the other woman some time alone to say goodbye to the Doctor and Donna. Rose got the impression that Martha had liked the Doctor- alright, more than liked him- and while she seemed to have moved on now, Rose could tell that her turning up out of the blue had startled Martha. She wouldn’t intrude on her time to say goodbye with the Doctor.

“Why don’t I show you the snug?” Rose suggested to Jenny and Peter as the Doctor, Martha and Donna left the TARDIS. “We can queue up a film, and your Dad and Donna can join us later.”

Both Jenny and Peter looked quite pleased with that idea, and Rose grinned, leading them further into the TARDIS.

Outside, the Doctor walked a little way behind Donna and Martha as they made their way back to Martha’s flat.

“Are you sure about this?” Donna asked quietly as she walked beside the younger woman.

“Yeah, positive,” Martha nodded, giving the redhead a smile that was completely genuine. “I can’t do this anymore, the constant travelling. You’ll be the same one day.”

“Not me,” Donna denied. “Never. How could I ever go back to normal life after seeing all this? I’m going to travel with that man forever.” She paused then, and frowned. “Well, if it’s alright with Rose.”

Martha gave her a knowing look. “That’s what I mean. There’s Rose, and Peter and Jenny to take into account. The Doctor will want to spend time with them without me hanging around.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” the Doctor piped up suddenly from behind them, and the two women realised he’d overheard the conversation. He wedged himself between Donna and Martha and the trio continued walking. “I mean, yeah, we’ll probably have some downtime now, let Rose get settled back in, and get Peter and Jenny settled. And I still want to run some tests on all three of them. But you’re always welcome, Martha. And we’re certainly not kicking you out, Donna. Rose wouldn’t let me be so rude.”

“Are you sure?” Donna asked nervously.

The Doctor beamed. “Of course. And Rose will say the same.” He looked at her. “Go on, get back to the TARDIS and make sure nothing’s broken.”

They came to a stop outside Martha’s flat then.

Donna arched an eyebrow at him. “Rose is keeping an eye on the kids, I don’t think they’re going to wreck your TARDIS.”

The Doctor mock-frowned then. “Rose is jeopardy friendly! Who knows what trouble they might get into? Go on, Donna, head on home and I’ll catch you up.”

Donna grinned at that. Home. The TARDIS was her home too. She was part of his family. She pushed past the Time Lord to hug Martha then.

“Stay in touch?” Donna asked.

“I’ll certainly try,” Martha agreed as they separated.

With a final smile, Donna turned and headed back to the TARDIS. Martha and the Doctor watched her go.

“We’re making a habit of this,” the Doctor said once Donna had disappeared into the TARDIS.

Martha smiled at him then, a little sadly. “Yeah,” she agreed. “And you’d think it’d get easier. Did you mean what you said? About me always being welcome?”

“Oh, Martha Jones, always!” the Doctor told her. “And I think you’d like Rose, too.” He paused. “I know today must have been a shock, and I’m sorry for not warning you. And... And again, I’m sorry for how I treated you, all that time ago.”

Martha smiled gently at him. “Already forgiven,” she told him. “And I think, maybe, I’d like to get to know Rose. And Jenny and Peter. But Rose seems nice. Not what I expected, but I think I’d like to get to know her.” She smirked then. “And maybe me, her, Jenny and Donna can have a girl’s night.”

“Sounds great,” the Doctor beamed.

“Yeah?” Martha asked. “Think Rose would be up for it?”

He nodded. “Definitely.”

“Great,” Martha grinned, turning to head into the front garden of her property. “I’ll phone Rose later, arrange a date.” She pulled her keys from her pocket and unlocked the door. Just before she stepped inside, she turned back to the Doctor. “You don’t mind us invading the TARDIS, right?”

The Doctor spluttered then, eyes going wide as he finally realised she wanted to have a girl’s night _on his TARDIS_.

“I... That wasn’t... Martha!”

Martha just grinned and waved at him before shutting the door behind her.

~0~0~

The Doctor returned to the TARDIS, sending them into the Time Vortex to rest, and headed to the galley. He knew the TARDIS would lead him to wherever Rose, Donna and the kids were, but figured he could stop off for tea first. When he got there, there were two large bowls and two bags of popcorn waiting for him on the side.

“They’re having a movie night, then?” he asked the TARDIS, and her lights dimmed in an affirmative.

He put the popcorn in the microwave and set the timer before boiling the kettle. He then set about selecting mugs and dropping in tea bags. The mug he’d chosen for himself was a favourite of his; big and grey and plain, but one that Rose had bought for him in his previous body. Donna’s was next, a purple spotty mug that she’d picked up in a local Tesco of all places, but she liked it. Then Rose’s; he had to root in the back of the cupboard for that, and he gave it a quick rinse out before dropping the tea bag into it. But it was large and white, with a photo of the two of them wearing paper crowns and grinning at the camera. Jackie had had it done for her daughter, the photo having been taken at Christmas, and the mug had been a going away present for Rose. Then, there were Jenny and Peter. He selected them both plain mugs, deciding that they could get their own mugs at a later date. He chose an orange one for Jenny and a yellow one for Peter. Both nice and bright, but plain.

The popcorn finished then, and he poured the bags into the two bowls before returning to the drinks. He poured in the milk to his, Donna’s and Rose’s mugs, adding sugar to his and Rose’s, before settling the mugs on a tray. He put the milk and sugar on there too; there was no knowing how either of the kids took their tea. Sparing a glance at the two bowls of popcorn, and knowing he’d have to come back for them, the Doctor took a breath and picked up the tray to go join his family.


End file.
